


We ain't gotta dream no more

by Tali (aworldinside)



Category: The Wire
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 21:35:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aworldinside/pseuds/Tali
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before a  murder. During a murder. After a murder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We ain't gotta dream no more

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nebula99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebula99/gifts).



> Spoilers for the end of Season 3.
> 
> Thank you to Luna for looking this over for me.

**Before:**

 

Omar walked down the street. He wasn't in a hurry. He knew what he had to do and the time he had to do it. Where Brother Muzone would be at. Where Stringer would be at. He wasn't nervous. This was going to happen. This had to happen. Stringer had fucked with the the wrong person this time.

The motherfucker walked around like he owned the place and thought he could fuck with the rules, and do what the hell he liked to people and expect no consequences. He could be gotten too. Admittedly, even Omar didn't think that Avon would be the one to give him up. Avon was a gangster, but he knew when the cards were against him, and if there was one thing you didn't do, it was make an enemy of Brother Muzone. Stringer didn't realise that.

He walked past a drycleaners, a woman coming out with her freshly pressed suit, sticking the dollar bills back into her wallet.

Stringer also didn't realise that this wasn't just a business, wasn't just numbers and a balance sheet, and couldn't be treated like one. There were people, and feelings, and those people had guns and could fuck you up with them if you hurt those feelings. While from the outside it might look like you could fuck with who you liked, especially when you were the king of the towers, or the parks. You couldn't. The game always bit back. It had its own kind of justice.

Omar wasn't a saint. He had done wrong, many, many times. He'd made peace with that. But there were some things he didn't fuck with. He looked after his people. People mattered. And yes, if you were in the game, you were a target, but it didn't mean you didn't watch out for your own, and it didn't mean you fucked with people outside the game.

He ducked into the alleyway beside the building Avon had said Stringer would be at and waited.

The motherfucker had it coming.

\--

Brother Muzone had gotten here hours ago. He just watched. And waited.

He raised his gun a little.

Bell would come. And he would die.

\--

**During:**

 

As soon as he saw Omar, part of Stringer knew this was it.

He ran because well, shit, might as well make the motherfucker work for it.

His shoes slipped on the wooden floors as he ran up the stairs. He didn't have a gun. He was over this gangster shit. Avon would have had a fucking gun.

He thought for a fleeting second he might get out of this until he saw Brother Muzone. They had a whole fucking conspiracy going on right here.

Stringer tried to get out of it, offer up money (it was all he really had) but they didn't seem interested. Tiny little bastard didn't say anything at all. Just stared at him with his glasses and bow-tie, like some badass grown up Steve Urkel.

He once thought he'd die like this. Shot in an building site by some crazy motherfucker with a shotgun, but as he'd gotten older and Avon and he had started doing well, he thought he'd managed to escape it. He'd take the classes, read the books, and he could do this. Make this legit. No need for the drugs, and after a while being a businessman, he could retire to some Caribbean fucking island with bitches in bikinis, people calling him Mr. Bell and anything he needed just a cellphone call away.

When he'd heard it was Avon who'd done him in, he took a deep breath and just waited for the shot to come. Despite the fact that he'd done in Avon, as well, he was still shocked. Avon had been better than him, or so he'd thought. He wasn't angry though. This was it.

He heard the shot and felt the bullets hit his chest.

Motherfuckers took their damn time.

\--

**After:**

 

The Wire buzzed in the background. Nothing pertinent. It had almost become a comforting sound to Lester, he'd been listening to it for so long.

Lester heard about Stringer's death from McNulty. He seemed pissed. Hell, Lester was pissed too. All they'd worked for, and not a chance to lock him up, but Stringer was part of a machine, and that machine was running just a little shakier now, metal grinding in the wrong places.

Stringer was always an interesting character. While he knew Bell was a low-life, responsible for an untold number of deaths, part of him had a grudging respect for the sneakey motherfucker. He wasn't stupid, and what he didn't know he went out and learned it. How to run a business. How to hide their dealings from the police, and hide the money in other assets, in funds, in property. Sneaky motherfucker indeed.

Shardene had told him a bit about Stringer, or what little she'd seen. Stringer mostly kept to the back room, occasionally walking through. Watching the dancers occasionally, but never for too long, concentrating on business. Always business.

He sipped his coffee. Was this an end of an era? If Avon fell (and he didn't have as far to fall as he once did), would Marlo just continue on? He didn't seem like he was cut from the same cloth to Lester. He was younger, harder, hungrier. More dangerous? Only time would tell.

The Wire buzzed again. Not pertinent.

They were close. He could feel it.

\--

The news had gotten to Avon fast. He knew it would. People were acting like he was going to explode or some shit, but he'd just told them all to shut up and gone to the office at the back of the funeral parlour.

Word on the street was that Marlo had hit Stringer. Avon knew better.

From when they were little'uns running for the guys in the corners, Avon knew he and String were different, String didn't like roughing people up, but he was curious, always knew what was going on, and knew how things worked behind the scenes. Avon liked the feel of the weight of a gun in his hand. He could draw a crowd. He could make people do what he and String wanted. It didn't matter, they were brothers; they were .... had been in this together and it worked ... had worked.

Avon didn't cry. Had never cried since he was small, and sure as hell wasn't going to start now, but if he had, he thought now wouldn't be such a bad time. He'd lost a brother. He'd killed a brother.

He pulled the gun from the drawer of the desk and went out the door.

He'd have to live with that.

He would live with that.

\--


End file.
